Protection or the price thereof
by whatifqueen
Summary: Drinking had never solved any of Belle's problems in the past, but with the curse broken and Rumpelstiltskin's current behavior it seemed as good a response as any. Diverges from canon after season one.


**Summary: **Drinking had never solved any of Belle's problems in the past, but with the curse broken and Rumpelstiltskin's current behavior it seemed as good a response as any. Diverges from canon after season one.

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**Protection (or the price thereof)**

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The door squeaks as she pushes it open. And no matter how hard she tries to shush it, it seems quite intent on continuing to alert the other occupant of the residence as to her entry – it's quite rude that way. Maybe she'll have Rumpelstiltskin turn it into a window; that would teach it a lesson. If he was going to disregard the damage he was doing to himself and those around him with magic, shouldn't she at least get something out of it?

The entire cabin was against her: two steps into the darkened abode and she promptly tripped over her own two feet, knocking over a chair that deliberately placed itself in her way. In the middle of righting it – and herself – the lights flooded the room, leaving her squinting through her temporary blindness to find a figure by the light switch.

Rumpelstiltskin. And if his posture was any indication, he wasn't at all happy with her.

"Enjoy your walk, dearie?" he asks evenly. But with Rumpelstiltskin there were always layers; tension was hiding just beneath the surface of his tone. And if that wasn't enough of a clue the askew belting of his robe told her just how frantic he had been when he discovered she wasn't at home.

Home. Not the Dark Castle – that was a world away – or the house with the stained-glass where he'd lived all by himself under the curse or even the shop where she'd found him after all those years; no, home for them these days was a cabin in the very woods where she had remembered. The moment the cloud of magic finished rolling over the town of Storybrooke, he had secreted them away to a cabin well off the beaten path.

They hadn't moved since. There were supplies and clothing in place – he wasn't that much larger than her so she found she could easily borrow from his wardrobe without looking indecent, thank goodness for small favors – so there was little need for them to risk the wrath of the misplaced denizens of a lost world.

Or rather, little need for _him_ to risk it. As much as she loved Rumpelstiltskin – and it just kept growing each day in spite of him stomping all over her heart in displays of stupid, asinine stubbornness – she couldn't just abandon the world for him. There were other people she cared for that were trapped here; she just needed to find them. The trouble would be sifting through the untold millions; a good thing she knew where to start.

It just wasn't with him. Whenever she brought it up he seemed bound and determined to try and talk her out of it. His paranoia was at an all time high and she knew that it had everything to do with her presence. And why shouldn't it? Regina had interfered with them before.

From the moment they were reunited – the first time, before she remembered – he had promised to protect her. With everything going on she honestly doubted that anyone would bother coming after them; they'd all be too busy picking up the pieces of their shattered lives. The only person who had anything to gain by hurting her was Regina and she had her hands full with other concerns. And really, anything that anyone else could have done to punish him without magic would have been contrary to their natures. So why had he brought it back if it also brought back the threat of Regina?

Those concerns went in one ear and right out the other. The return of magic, it seemed, hadn't improved his listening skills any since the last time he'd wielded it.

Still, it wasn't fair to blame him for wanting to protect her when she'd asked him to do so. But neither was it fair for her to live under rules she didn't agree with – she wasn't contracted to him anymore and he would have to deal with that. So she decided to take matters into her own hands.

Even Rumpelstiltskin had to sleep sometime and she'd taken full advantage of that fact to meet up with an old friend. No matter what kingdom they came from, everyone had heard what Snow White had done with the help of seven dwarves. And if there was ever a dwarf that defied convention, it was the one known as Dreamy. They called him Grumpy these days and while he was living up to his new name, she could see his old self lurking beneath his gruff exterior as they caught up and exchanged stories.

There may have been drinking involved. _A lot_ of drinking. And it wasn't her fault that she was out of practice. Twenty-eight years in a psychiatric ward had left her ill-prepared for a night of drowning her sorrows with the company of the town drunk.

He hadn't known where her father was, either. Before he met his fairy love, he led an isolated existence in the dwarf mines. The place she came from was so far from the kingdom he had known and, besides that, the trouble with the ogres had been over before it could spread beyond the borders. As a result Sir Maurice and his lands remained relatively obscure to anyone who didn't hail from there themselves. It was a sad consequence, but one she should have expected.

But that was neither here nor there. Rumpelstiltskin was still waiting for an answer.

"I may have lit Regina's lawn gnome on fire," she confesses.

This is clearly not the answer he was expecting. A series of conflicting expressions cross his face until he finally settles on something resembling curiosity. "And how, exactly, did you manage that?"

"It wasn't easy."

Kerosene was surprisingly difficult to find in this town after 10:00 PM. Fortunately, Grumpy knew someone who worked at Storybrooke Hardware and Paint who could let them in to browse the merchandise. Then there had been the logistics nightmare that was setting a stone ornament ablaze without torching the lawn or house itself. Regina may have been host to a whole multitude of sins, but that didn't mean Belle wanted her dead.

Still, the drinking made that part difficult to remember; she'd gotten caught up in the moment. But it was Rumpelstiltskin's fault she had been drinking in the first place. Him and his lust for power. In spite of all they'd been through, he was still keeping secrets from her. She'd been a surprise, albeit a happy one, so protecting her hadn't been on the forefront of his mind when he'd brought back his seat of power in the form of magic. Things were supposed to be different. Instead, it was just more of the same.

No, not the same. Not entirely. There had been some progress, at least: He was willing to not only accept her love but admit that he felt it in return. The hope that had sprung from that was why she felt so disappointed in response to the rest of it. What had happened to him? It wasn't just her absence that provoked that change; something else had occurred. He'd hardly believed she could be alive when she walked through his door.

It would take time, of that she was certain. He'd always been as skittish as a deer, her Rumpelstiltskin, and all she could do was approach him gently and try to get him to open up to her. Persistence tempered by love, that was the key.

"What were you thinking?"

"I think it was supposed to be a statement on my independence and freedom from the yoke of her oppression," she says, tossing her bag toward the table. It misses by a long shot, skittering across the floor until it stops up against a wall.

And, of course, it chose that moment to release the bottle she'd washed out and saved in some vague idea of recycling.

"Traitor," she mutters to herself, glaring at the bag. The bag has nothing to say for itself.

"You've been drinking."

"Nooooooo," she lies smoothly. Or she thinks she would have if she hadn't burst into a fit of giggles exactly half a second later. She can't help it: The idea of putting one over on him for once is _hilarious_.

"Wonderful," he growls, but she can tell that his heart isn't in it. Especially considering how she's managed to sidle up to him and invade his space during the course of their conversation, plastering herself up against him. She'd been trying to be good, letting them get used to one another again after their time apart, but as it turns out drunk Belle is even bolder than regular Belle. Who knew?

"I'm sorry," she says, her words muffled in his robe as she presses her head against the soft fabric. "I didn't mean to worry you."

He places his hands on her shoulders and pushes her away just enough so that he can look her in the eyes; and she's left wondering how it's possible for someone's eyes to change so much and yet still be the same. His grip on her shoulders tightens as if he's afraid she'll disappear if he doesn't keep a hold on her.

"You have to be careful," he says, voice thick with emotion. "There are people here, people who—"

"Who would want to use me to get to you," she recites mechanically. Regina and the Blue Fairy are just the ones she knows about with power, and he claims that there are more. "I know."

"I won't lose you again," he swears, fingers reaching up to tangle in her hair. "I can't."

And her heart breaks for him all over again. Slowly, tentatively, she raises a hand in to cup his face. She's longed for his presence as surely as he's longed for hers.

"I'm going to kiss you now," she states firmly and leans in.

He pulls away reluctantly, eyes alighting on her arm. "You're injured."

It's a distraction, she knows it is. She won't let him get away with it that easily. But his eyes don't move. After a moment, she looks down, too, and wishes she hadn't.

Her arm is bleeding.

The blood she can deal with. It's just a shallow cut, really; she hadn't even noticed it. A bandage and some balm, and it would be gone in less than a week. That's not the problem. The problem is what he'll do next, and it won't be pretty.

Whoever was closest to their location would be the one to pay. Oh, she knew how his mind worked: Someone had to be to blame for her hurts and he needed to make up for not being there to stop it in the first place; not being able to stop it any of the times between her departure and their reunion. Even the smallest of things was cause to unleash his fury. Nothing was too much to keep her safe.

There was an ever-present fear that someone would run across them in the woods and Rumpelstiltskin would take matters into his own hands. She didn't have to worry about herself – she _never_ had to worry about herself around him. It was everyone else she had to look out for.

"The chair," she says. There's not enough emphasis so she corrects that. "The _fucking_ chair. Grumpy's teaching me to swear. Shh, don't tell my father. Proper young ladies don't swear. Do you know where he is?"

"Far away if he knows what's good for him," he responds darkly.

Her eyes flicker back up to his face. "What?"

"Never you mind," he says, reaching out to hover his hand over her arm. It may be glowing purple for all she knows, but she's not paying attention to any usage of magic. No, her focus is on his face and the way it turned to stone when she mentioned her father this time.

He knew something. There he was, acting the part of the innocent while she was forced to blunder through town and seek whatever threadbare links she could find, _and he knew something about her father._

She may have been irritated by his secret-keeping before, but now? Oh, now she was pissed. And it was amazing what anger could do to sober a person up.

"Rumpelstiltskin," Belle says slowly, carefully, pulling herself out of his grip and taking a step back. "Where is my father?"

"You're better off without him."

"No," she says, firm in her resolve. "You don't get to decide that. He's my father—"

"Oh, yes, and what a father he is," he sneers, voice twisting with emotion as he stalks toward her. "A good father, a true father wouldn't have given up. He abandoned you to your fate! He had a choice to do what was right by you and he let go. Not precisely 'Father of the Year,' I think."

It hits her like a lightning bolt as she's backing away from him, the table butting up against her backside. The accusations… That was self-recrimination in his voice. But it wasn't just about her, not entirely. Voices from the past echo in her head and she remembers a conversation before the seed of doubt was planted in their relationship.

"Is that what you did?" she asks, pushing forward. "With your son: Is that what happened?"

He freezes, stock-still in the wake of her question. She uses the opportunity to hoist herself up on the table for want of something to sit on; the adrenaline may have helped sober her up, but she's still not at one hundred percent.

Slowly, as if in a trance, he comes to sit beside her. And when he speaks, it's to barely choke out one word: "Yes."

Rumpelstiltskin clenches the fabric of his slacks in his hands, shoulders bunched and head bowed, and she thinks she can see the outline of the man he once was before he cloaked himself in darkness. There really was no helping it: From the very first time she had seen that vulnerability cross his face, her heart had gone out to him and she had fallen hard. Belle knows deep down in her bones that she would have loved that man, too, stripped of the artifice he had carefully constructed around himself as armor for a cruel and capricious world.

She scoots closer to him, the pressure of their legs touching through cloth a reassuring presence. "And you're worried that the same thing might happen with me? Or do you think it already did?"

He says nothing, though his head turns ever so slightly so that he can look at her out of the corner of his eye. Whether it comes from a desire to gauge her reaction or keep her in his sights at all times, she doesn't know.

"Listen to me, Rumpelstiltskin: I'm not going to leave you. Whatever happened between you and my father – and yes, I know something happened; you wouldn't act so squirrely if it hadn't – you don't need to hide the truth of where he is from me in order to keep me here. I love you, for better or for worse."

His posture straightens as he turns more fully toward her, though none of the tension dissipates. "What he did—"

"Doesn't matter," she interjects, cutting through to the meat of it. "He's my father and I want him safe. Is he safe?"

His shoulders come up in a shrug as a look of comical indifference takes over his face. "More or less."

It takes a considerable amount of effort, but she manages not to roll her eyes. He always had to make everything difficult, didn't he? The last thing she needs right now is another of his inappropriate quips.

"Then you'll take me to him?" she asks, the faintest stirrings of hope fluttering in her chest.

"No," he says. There's no elaboration after that point and Belle finds herself momentarily stunned into silence.

"No?" she prods incredulously.

"Going into town, visiting him in an unsecure location… It's too much of a risk. She found you before," Rumpelstiltskin says, looking at her significantly. Regina. Of course. "Twice, if I recall correctly. And that was before you practically gave her a hand-written invitation by attacking one of her tacky little trophies."

It had seemed like a good idea at the time. She's not sure who came up with the idea first – probably her; between her and Grumpy she'd always been the more proactive one – but somewhere between excitedly yelling ideas at one another she'd taken it up as something like a dare. By that point even Grumpy was as drunk as a skunk and egging her on the whole way.

The part she hadn't planned on was yelling up at the second-story windows and demanding to know what had been done with her father. In her addled state, Belle had been so certain that Regina was involved in some sort of conspiracy to keep the two of them separate – not a far leap considering her own imprisonment and victimization at the hands of the queen.

There had been no answer or even any indication that the woman in question was at home. Still, when the sound of voices carried down the street to their location, Grumpy had grabbed her arm with the hand still holding the grill lighter – if she was being honest, that was most likely the moment that had caused her injury – and pulled her into a run.

Some habits die hard, she supposed. And some lawn ornaments, too, if what greeted them when they'd circled back was any indication. Somehow, the damned thing had survived being char-broiled.

"Old Regina is a pain in the arse at the best of times," Rumpelstiltskin continues, the intensity of his gaze increasing the longer he looks at her. "Quite intent on getting her way by any means necessary. But she made a mistake in coming anywhere near you, in trying to hurt me through you. I don't intend to give the opportunity again. I won't go another three decades without you."

"We can't spend that time locked away here because you're afraid something might happen. That's not living."

"No," he echoes hollowly, looking away from her to some invisible spot in the middling distance. "We can't."

"I traveled for months by myself. I know people, people who would be willing to help me – and by extension you. All you have to do is trust them," Belle pleads. The unspoken words practically screamed beneath the spoken ones from her reckoning: _And me._ "And there are others who would oppose her: Snow White and her war council. We have allies now, if only you'd make use of them."

"The same allies who imprisoned me because a silly girl didn't know how to read the fine print and felt a case of buyer's remorse. Yes, I'm sure I'll be perfectly safe in their hands," he mutters.

"Times are different. They don't have the luxury of grudges anymore," she adds.

He smiles faintly. "Quite determined, aren't you?"

"Yes," she agrees.

"My brave lady," he says fondly, but that's not all there is; his eyes are shining brightly. "You would be the greatest threat to yourself, wouldn't you? But it's okay, it's okay: If you won't protect yourself, then I'll do it for you."

Something was wrong. She'd gotten so caught up in arguing her point that she hadn't noticed until now, but something was very, very wrong. "What are you talking about?"

The tingling sensation crawls further up her spine the longer he keeps talking. "I'm sorry, Belle. I truly, truly am. It'll only be temporary until I can make things safe for us. For all of us."

There was no flourish to it, no elaborate hand gestures or mad giggle that he was so infamous for; the magic just _happens_. The purple smoke envelopes her and blocks him from her sight; and when he returns there is something in his hand dangling at his side.

It's at her eye level.

"Just until I can get you to the lamp in my shop," he explains as he towers over her. "You'll be safe there, I promise."

The glass of the bottle comes down over her.

**A/N:** Based off of a joking response given on Robert Carlyle's twitter page. When asked what would happen to Belle if Emilie de Ravin didn't return for season two, he said "we'll stick her in a bottle and keep her on Rumple's shelf." Silly Mr. Carlyle: You can't give the fandom something like that and expect them not to take it as a challenge.


End file.
